Bridge Project is dedicated to exposing the conservative movement’s dishonest tactics, dismantling its extreme ideology, and shining light on the moneyed special interests that fund it.

Issues: Medicaid

American Bridge spokesperson Andrew Bates released the following statement after a leaked Trump Administration memo proved that Donald Trump intentionally abused his executive authority to undermine the American healthcare system and needlessly raised out-of-pocket healthcare costs in order to help persuade Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA):

“Donald Trump has been caught red-handed: he drove-up​ healthcare costs on American families in an attempt to end Obamacare,” said American Bridge spokesperson Andrew Bates. “Far from providing less expensive care to ‘everyone’ or fighting to reduce the economic burdens faced by the ‘forgotten men and women’ – as he promised – we now know that Donald Trump made the cost of healthcare soar for untold thousands on purpose. It is imperative that Congress and the HHS inspector general get to the bottom of this damning revelation immediately​.”

According to the Trump Administration’s own data, average premiums for benchmark silver plans on the health insurance marketplaces increased […]

Issues

Politicians & Pundits

Today, the White House doubled down on attacking three of the nineteen women who have accused President Trump of sexual misconduct as liars on a “publicity tour.” Fittingly, Trump also released a robocall in support of child sexual predator Roy Moore on the eve of Election Day in Alabama. This administration continues to sink to new lows of disrespecting women and each and every person who enables President Trump to remain in the Oval Office should be ashamed.

Issues

Politicians & Pundits

This week editorial boards all across the country ripped into President Trump and the Republicans for their tax plan that will crush the middle class to pay for billions in tax breaks for the super rich and explode the deficit for generations to come. Additionally, Trump took his boldest step yet to undercut the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau, made a racist slur about a sitting US Senator, and was rebuked for re-tweeting hateful anti-Muslim propaganda videos.

Trump’s claim about “millions” of farms and family businesses is not even close to the truth. The Tax Policy Center at the Brookings Institution found only 80 of them among the 5,500 estates subject to the tax last year. Most fortunes are amassed, […]

Issues

Politicians & Pundits

American Bridge Rapid Response Director Emily Aden released the following statement on Alex Azar’s confirmation hearing today before the Senate HELP Committee:

“This morning, Alex Azar failed miserably to convince the American people that he is anything other than a former drug company president looking out for his bottom line. Unsurprisingly, he doubled down on his hostility to the Affordable Care Act, women’s right to birth control coverage, and paid cheap lip service to the high costs of prescription drugs that made him his millions. In round after round of questioning he proved he simply has no good answer about his record raising the prices of life saving medication. If he is confirmed he will carry out the bidding of the industry that made him rich and his ultimate boss- Donald Trump.”

Issues

Politicians & Pundits

This morning the Senate HELP Committee will hold its first hearing on HHS Secretary nominee, and former Big Pharma CEO, Alex Azar. Azar is a candidate hand-picked for the drug and insurance companies and will do anything to keep industry profits high even when it means raising insurance premiums and costs for lifesaving medication for the American people. It’s no surprise Azar, like Donald Trump, wants to destroy the Affordable Care Act and turn Medicaid into a block grant program, both of which are on industry bucket lists, raise costs for consumers, and disproportionately hurt women and working families.

American Bridge Rapid Response Director Emily Aden stated, “Donald Trump picked Alex Azar to lead HHS because he knows he can trust Azar to carry out his dangerous and destructive health care agenda. From dismantling the Affordable Care Act, to raising prices for prescription drugs, to rolling back access to women’s health […]

Politicians & Pundits

In conjunction with the 50th anniversary of Medicaid, Bridge Project today released a new report, “The Koch-Backed Effort to Kill Medicaid,” highlighting the Koch brothers ongoing assault on Medicaid, which they would give just about anything — hundreds of millions of dollars, anyway — to destroy.

And unlike some of their other, more subversive campaigns of destruction that prioritize their profit margins over the interests of the American public, the Kochs haven’t been too subtle on this one: the Kochs and Koch-funded groups have explicitly spoken out against Medicaid, advocated Medicaid-crippling budgets, and even attacked Republicans (!) for not supporting their Medicaid-destroying agenda.

This time, the Kochs are all-in. All-in to block state-level Medicaid expansions that would extend healthcare access to millions of Americans. All-in to strip healthcare from the millions who already benefit from the program […]

Issues

Politicians & Pundits

The Kochs took a hit with the announcement of an Obamacare win in the King v. Burwell Supreme Court decision, but don’t expect that to stop them from doing their damnedest to prevent more people from getting covered. In response to the decision, the Kochs’ political strong arm, Americans for Prosperity (AFP) has already released a new ad against Obamacare. AFP and the Kochs are also campaigning hard to prevent the expansion of Medicaid around the country. The latest ACA news has brought back that fight into focus, with North Carolina as one of the key decision states.

North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory already rejected the expansion back in 2013, but now the state has a second chance to help cover its nearly 600,000 uninsured residents. The latest calls for change have been met by AFP-North Carolina with dismissal. In a December post on their website, AFP-North Carolina Director Donald Bryson said that “refusing Medicaid […]

Issues

Politicians & Pundits

Following a disastrous 2012 election cycle in which Mitt Romney infamously described 47 percent of voters as “dependent upon the government,” Republican leaders set out to make their party more appealing – or at least less insulting – to middle-class and working Americans.

Just weeks after the election, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) gave a speech on “middle-class opportunity” that was hailed as a sign of shifting conservative priorities and a more compassionate Republican Party. However, Rubio’s message did not translate into action, as he and his party spent the next year opposing middle-class tax cuts, pushing massive cuts to the safety net, and even shutting down the government in a futile attempt to undermine access to affordable health insurance.

Meanwhile, Rubio endorsed comprehensive immigration reform but failed to sell conservatives on a bipartisan bill and, after damaging his standing on the right, eventually dialed back his support. That failed leadership led one major Florida newspaper to dub Rubio the “political loser” of 2013, so it’s no surprise to see the senator delivering yet another highly publicized speech to give his image a boost.

It is almost unfathomable that Rubio is giving a speech on poverty just a day after voting against unemployment benefits. But his refusal to help the unemployed is actually emblematic of conservatives’ empty rhetoric on poverty. Until Rubio and the Republicans come up with any actual ideas beyond their endless calls for more tax cuts and repealing Obamacare, the real war on poverty in America remains their endless attacks on the middle and working class.

Issues

Politicians & Pundits

Ending Spending claims that Rep. Joe Donnelly (D-IN) is “spending our future away,” connecting his support for the health care law and the Recovery Act to the rising debt. However, the Affordable Care Act actually reduces the deficit, while the stimulus bill created jobs and helped rescue the economy from a deeper recession. In reality, Bush administration policies and the recession itself caused deficits to explode in recent years.

Issues

Organizations

Politicians & Pundits

Independence Virginia PAC hits former Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine (D) over a set of cuts to public education he proposed during his tenure, paraphrasing a local supervisor to call the cuts “a kick in the teeth.” But the ad glosses over the devastating recession that cut short state revenues, forcing Kaine to propose tough cuts in virtually every sector, and the fact that Kaine’s successor approved a budget with even larger education cuts in order to avoid tax increases.